Technical Evaluation of the Carolo-Cup 2014 - A Competition for Self-Driving Miniature Cars

The Carolo-Cup competition conducted for the eighth time this year, is an international student competition focusing on autonomous driving scenarios implemented on 1:10 scale car models. Three practical sub-competitions have to be realized in this context and represent a complex, interdisciplinary challenge. Hence, students have to cope with all core topics like mechanical development, electronic design, and programming as addressed usually by robotic applications. In this paper we introduce the competition challenges in detail and evaluate the results of all 13 participating teams from the 2014 competition. For this purpose, we analyze technical as well as non-technical configurations of each student group and derive best practices, lessons learned, and criteria as a precondition for a successful participation. Due to the comprehensive orientation of the Carolo-Cup, this knowledge can be applied on comparable projects and related competitions as well

Sequential therapies after atezolizumab plus bevacizumab or lenvatinib first-line treatments in hepatocellular carcinoma patients

Introduction: The aim of this retrospective proof-of-concept study was to compare different second-line treatments for patients with hepatocellular carcinoma and progressive disease (PD) after first-line lenvatinib or atezolizumab plus bevacizumab.Materials and methods: A total of 1381 patients had PD at first-line therapy. 917 patients received lenvatinib as first-line treatment, and 464 patients atezolizumab plus bevacizumab as first-line.Results: 49.6% of PD patients received a second-line therapy without any statistical difference in overall survival (OS) between lenvatinib (20.6 months) and atezolizumab plus bev-acizumab first-line (15.7 months; p = 0.12; hazard ratio [HR] = 0.80). After lenvatinib first-line, there wasn't any statistical difference between second-line therapy subgroups (p = 0.27; sorafenib HR: 1; immunotherapy HR: 0.69; other therapies HR: 0.85). Patients who under-went trans-arterial chemo-embolization (TACE) had a significative longer OS than patients who received sorafenib (24.7 versus 15.8 months, p < 0.01; HR = 0.64). After atezolizumab plus bevacizumab first-line, there was a statistical difference between second-line therapy subgroups (p < 0.01; sorafenib HR: 1; lenvatinib HR: 0.50; cabozantinib HR: 1.29; other therapies HR: 0.54). Patients who received lenvatinib (17.0 months) and those who under-went TACE (15.9 months) had a significative longer OS than patients treated with sorafenib (14.2 months; respectively, p = 0.01; HR = 0.45, and p < 0.05; HR = 0.46).Conclusion: Approximately half of patients receiving first-line lenvatinib or atezolizumab plus bevacizumab access second-line treatment. Our data suggest that in patients progressed to atezolizumab plus bevacizumab, the systemic therapy able to achieve the longest survival is lenvatinib, while in patients progressed to lenvatinib, the systemic therapy able to achieve the longest survival is immunotherapy

Survey on Multi-Objective Task Allocation Algorithms for IoT Networks

The Internet of Things (IoT) has been an area of growing research interest for decades. Task allocation is an important problem for the optimized operation of Internet-of-Things networks. This paper provides an overview of recent research in the field of Internet-of-Things task allocation optimization. First, the task allocation problem for the IoT itself is analyzed and divided into distinct sub-problem categories, such as deployment optimization, static or dynamic optimization as well as single- or multi-objective optimization. Following that, the commonly used optimization objectives are explained. Various recent works in the field of task allocation optimization are then summarized and catalogued according to the problem categories. Finally, the paper concludes with a qualitative analysis of the categorized approaches and a description of open problems and highlights promising directions for future research

Generic Component-Based Mission-Centric Energy Model for Micro-Scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

The trend towards the usage of battery-electric unmanned aerial vehicles needs new strategies in mission planning and in the design of the systems themselves. To create an optimal mission plan and take appropriate decisions during the mission, a reliable, accurate and adaptive energy model is of utmost importance. However, most existing approaches either use very generic models or ones that are especially tailored towards a specific UAV. We present a generic energy model that is based on decomposing a robotic system into multiple observable components. The generic model is applied to a swarm of quadcopters and evaluated in multiple flights with different manoeuvres. We additionally use the data from practical experiments to learn and generate a mission-agnostic energy model which can match the typical behaviour of our quadcopters such as hovering; movement in x, y and z directions; landing; communication; and illumination. The learned energy model concurs with the overall energy consumption with an accuracy over 95% compared to the training flights for the indoor use case. An extended model reduces the error to less than 1.4%. Consequently, the proposed model enables an estimation of the energy used in flight and on the ground, which can be easily incorporated in autonomous systems and enhance decision-making with reliable input. The used learning mechanism allows to deploy the approach with minimal effort to new platforms needing only some representative test missions, which was shown using additional outdoor validation flights with a different quadcopter of the same build and the originally trained models. This set-up increased the prediction error of our model to 4.46%

Glucan, Water Dikinase Activity Stimulates Breakdown of Starch Granules by Plastidial β-Amylases1[W][OA]

Glucan phosphorylating enzymes are required for normal mobilization of starch in leaves of Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) and potato (Solanum tuberosum), but mechanisms underlying this dependency are unknown. Using two different activity assays, we aimed to identify starch degrading enzymes from Arabidopsis, whose activity is affected by glucan phosphorylation. Breakdown of granular starch by a protein fraction purified from leaf extracts increased approximately 2-fold if the granules were simultaneously phosphorylated by recombinant potato glucan, water dikinase (GWD). Using matrix-assisted laser-desorption ionization mass spectrometry several putative starch-related enzymes were identified in this fraction, among them β-AMYLASE1 (BAM1; At3g23920) and ISOAMYLASE3 (ISA3; At4g09020). Experiments using purified recombinant enzymes showed that BAM1 activity with granules similarly increased under conditions of simultaneous starch phosphorylation. Purified recombinant potato ISA3 (StISA3) did not attack the granular starch significantly with or without glucan phosphorylation. However, starch breakdown by a mixture of BAM1 and StISA3 was 2 times higher than that by BAM1 alone and was further enhanced in the presence of GWD and ATP. Similar to BAM1, maltose release from granular starch by purified recombinant BAM3 (At4g17090), another plastid-localized β-amylase isoform, increased 2- to 3-fold if the granules were simultaneously phosphorylated by GWD. BAM activity in turn strongly stimulated the GWD-catalyzed phosphorylation. The interdependence between the activities of GWD and BAMs offers an explanation for the severe starch excess phenotype of GWD-deficient mutants

Bridging Physical and Digital Traffic System Simulations with the Gulliver Test-Bed ⋆

Abstract. We propose a cyber-physical platform that combines road traffic simulation, network simulation, and physically simulated vehicles to facilitate extensive testing on various levels of vehicular systems. Our design integrates physical and digital vehicle simulation into a common development and testing environment. This paper describes the platform design and presents prototypical implementations that use Simulator of Urban Mobility (SUMO), TinyOS Simulator (TOSSIM), a 3D sensor simulation environment, and a test-bed of miniature vehicles called Gulliver. As a prototypical implementation, we demonstrate the development of cooperative applications, and by that we achieve: (a) a cyber-physical system that provides a common environment for physically and digitally simulated vehicles, (b) a platform to interface communication between physically and digitally simulated vehicles, and (c) the ability to tailor testing scenarios in which some system components are simulated digitally and some physically. The suggested design provides flexibility, cost efficiency, and scalable testing opportunities for future vehicular systems. Furthermore, the proposed system is able to support novel steps towards intelligent transportation systems for smart cities.

STARCH-EXCESS4 Is a Laforin-Like Phosphoglucan Phosphatase Required for Starch Degradation in Arabidopsis thaliana[W][OA]

Starch is the major storage carbohydrate in plants. It is comprised of glucans that form semicrystalline granules. Glucan phosphorylation is a prerequisite for normal starch breakdown, but phosphoglucan metabolism is not understood. A putative protein phosphatase encoded at the Starch Excess 4 (SEX4) locus of Arabidopsis thaliana was recently shown to be required for normal starch breakdown. Here, we show that SEX4 is a phosphoglucan phosphatase in vivo and define its role within the starch degradation pathway. SEX4 dephosphorylates both the starch granule surface and soluble phosphoglucans in vitro, and sex4 null mutants accumulate phosphorylated intermediates of starch breakdown. These compounds are linear α-1,4-glucans esterified with one or two phosphate groups. They are released from starch granules by the glucan hydrolases α-amylase and isoamylase. In vitro experiments show that the rate of starch granule degradation is increased upon simultaneous phosphorylation and dephosphorylation of starch. We propose that glucan phosphorylating enzymes and phosphoglucan phosphatases work in synergy with glucan hydrolases to mediate efficient starch catabolism

A Putative Phosphatase, LSF1, Is Required for Normal Starch Turnover in Arabidopsis Leaves1[W][OA]

A putative phosphatase, LSF1 (for LIKE SEX4; previously PTPKIS2), is closely related in sequence and structure to STARCH-EXCESS4 (SEX4), an enzyme necessary for the removal of phosphate groups from starch polymers during starch degradation in Arabidopsis (Arabidopsis thaliana) leaves at night. We show that LSF1 is also required for starch degradation: lsf1 mutants, like sex4 mutants, have substantially more starch in their leaves than wild-type plants throughout the diurnal cycle. LSF1 is chloroplastic and is located on the surface of starch granules. lsf1 and sex4 mutants show similar, extensive changes relative to wild-type plants in the expression of sugar-sensitive genes. However, although LSF1 and SEX4 are probably both involved in the early stages of starch degradation, we show that LSF1 neither catalyzes the same reaction as SEX4 nor mediates a sequential step in the pathway. Evidence includes the contents and metabolism of phosphorylated glucans in the single mutants. The sex4 mutant accumulates soluble phospho-oligosaccharides undetectable in wild-type plants and is deficient in a starch granule-dephosphorylating activity present in wild-type plants. The lsf1 mutant displays neither of these phenotypes. The phenotype of the lsf1/sex4 double mutant also differs from that of both single mutants in several respects. We discuss the possible role of the LSF1 protein in starch degradation